Crypto Space Over The Past Week From 12 To 18 March, 2018

At the end of the week, we resume everything that the crypto community talked about over the past seven days. This week, it became known about Google's plans to ban advertising of cryptocurrency and ICO, Binance develops own blockchain, details of the Mt. Gox sale and others.

Top News

In June, Google will prohibit online cryptocurrency and ICO advertising, following Facebook, as well as the Chinese Baidu. This step is part of a large-scale campaign to limit the marketing of new varieties of high-risk financial products. Those who work in ICO industry, say that Google just advances indications of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) which purpose to protect cryptocurrency investors.

On March 14, the U.S. Congress hosted a meeting of the Committee on Financial Services, dedicated to cryptocurrencies and ICO. In the center of attention during hearings there was a subject of regulation and law enforcement from governmental bodies. Legislators have disagreed about what direction regulation process has to accept: whether new laws and powers are necessary for regulators or rather just to specify cryptocurrency laws. Regulation of this sphere in the USA faces two problems: who will be engaged in it (Securities and Exchange Commission or the Commodity Futures Trading Commission) and what laws should be applied.

It is expected that at the beginning of this week (on March 19-20) will discuss joint approach to regulation of the cryptocurrency market at the summit G20.

On March 15, Lightning Labs announced the beta release of its Lightning Network Daemon (LND) software client, which is designed for developers and can be used to access the Bitcoin Lightning Network. There are other developments of Lightning Network, however LND is the first implemented beta version. All major Lightning Network implementations will compatible with each other. The adoption of one continues to grow.

Also Lightning Labs reported fundarising from former adviser PayPal David Sacks and one of the founders of Robinhood Vlad Tenev, as well as CEO Square and Twitter Jack Dorsey. Square shares increased by more than 200% last year and now it can be called a banking technology company. Square quotes began to grow in November, before the news that Square Cash users will be able to buy and sell bitcoins.

Other News

Thomson Reuters announced that it intends to use artificial IT to monitor and analyze information from 400 sites, including cryptocurrency media and social networks. The company expects that the collection and analysis of such information will allow it to acquaint traders with the mood of the market and predict the prices for digital currencies.

In the Slovenian city of Kranj, there is the world's first "blockchain monument" in the form of the bitcoin logo. It has created by Alexander Franceshkin and Selman Chorovich. The sponsors were two Slovenian companies - a developer of mobile applications and cloud solutions 3fs and a cryptocurrency exchange Bitstamp.

Cryptocurrency Exchanges

The Binance exchange is in the spotlight again. Last week, hackers pumped Viacoin price due to their cracked Binance accounts. In this regard, the exchange announced the award to individuals who will be able to assist in exposing hackers. It offers $ 250,000 for information that will bring to justice hackers.

Also Binance reported in the official blog that it is working on their own blockchain and updated version of its BNB token. The new platform will be called Binance Chain, and, according to the company, its foundation will be an improved version of the blockchain technology, which focuses on performance, ease of use and liquidity. Now BNB is used to pay exchange fees and allows participants to invest in the ecosystem of the site.

At the Bitfinex exchange, has integrated monitoring and analysing trading activity platform from Irisium, which is one of the leaders in creating software solutions for such a plan for financial organizations. CTO Bitfinex, Paolo Ardoino, also said that the exchange is trying to implement a flexible surveillance system based on the latest technologies to meet the "complex customer needs" and protect their interests from "trade abuse".

Circle, which recently bought the Poloniex, will hire between 25 and 35 people to expand its operations in Hong Kong will form teams in South Korea and Japan.

The Gemini Exchange announced the creation of the Virtual Commodity Association, a self-managed group whose mission is to exclude speculation and uncertainty from the cryptocurrency space. According to Winklevoss twins, the next logical step in the process of market maturation will be the creation of a self-regulating organization that will be able to develop a program to monitor the turnover of virtual goods. They count on cooperation in this direction with leaders of various industries, market participants, regulators and legislators.

In addition, on March 1, the French documentary "Big Bang Bitcoin, the story of Mark Karpelès" released, in which the story of Mt. Gox and the CEO of Mark Karpelès.

Ripple said it plans to invest in startups and technology companies that will provide additional application for XRP - its cryptocurrency, the third at the moment for capitalization after bitcoin and ethereum. Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse told TechCrunch that Ripple is focused on enabling banks to use its software solutions (a set of services, some of which do not use XRP), but it also invests in startups that can offer alternative uses of XRP.

PayPal, Visa, IMF

At a meeting of the New York City Economic Club in Manhattan, PayPal CEO Dan Shulman said that digital currencies have an uncertain future. Also, Dan Shulman noted that the blockchain will become a more powerful part of the market and that the cryptocurrency is "just one of its applications."

In turn, the co-founder of PayPal Peter Thiel shares the view that bitcoin will become a means of preserving value rather than a popular currency for everyday transactions. According to Thiel, the probability that bitcoin will eventually depreciate is 50-80%, and the chance of its growth is 20-50%. There is a possibility that other digital currencies such as the ethereum will be able to beat bitcoin. Thiel believes that competitors can have better characteristics, but bitcoin is attractive for its scale.

On the contrary, the venture investor Tim Draper is one of those for whom cryptocurrencies are a smoothly developing ecosystem that will sooner or later take over the world. Last week, on the air of the program of the CNBC channel "Fast Money" Draper stated that now the only stable crypto currency is bitcoin, and in five years none of us will use fiat money. Thanks to all these developments and excitement, the focus was on bitcoin and all other cryptocurrencies. He believes that we will use them.

Visa's financial director Vasant Prabhu joined politicians and financiers who criticize cryptocurrencies. In an interview with the Financial Times, he said that he considers bitcoin and other digital assets as a bubble, as many unsophisticated investors are interested in them.

International Monetary Fund Managing Director Christine Lagarde said that governments and state banks should cooperate in creating a legislative basis for the circulation of cryptocurrency assets. The creation of such a base, according to Lagarde, will prevent the conversion of cryptocurrency into a tool for money laundering and terrorist financing.

This opinion shared by the general director of the online payment service "Yandex.Money" Ivan Glazachev. He says that in the foreseeable future, the cryptocurrencies will not be able to replace the money and bank cards "at least because for such everyday calculations, the cost and speed of the transaction for the crypt are too high, "but "the degree of control provided by the blocking technology that underlies cryptocurrency, in everyday calculations, just superfluous."